


Mon Ami

by blueorangecrush



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, Jealousy, M/M, mentions of various 2015 draft class
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 01:20:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17254946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueorangecrush/pseuds/blueorangecrush
Summary: Even "good morning!" is enough to start a life-long friendship, and maybe more.  If you say it in the right language, of course.





	Mon Ami

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eafay70](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eafay70/gifts).



> I love these boys. Love them. Love all the history they already have. I'm glad you love them too, because that made this fun to write! :)
> 
> Heavily inspired by [this article](https://www.nhl.com/islanders/news/friendship-goals-beau-and-barzy/c-298789232). 
> 
> Content notes/warnings at the end just in case.

**_Bon Matin_ **

That was how it started.  _“Bon matin!”_ – “Good morning!” 

Mat didn’t know the other boy who had been sitting quietly off to the side of a larger crowd of guys joking around in English, but he guessed that the boy was from Quebec, hadn’t learned much English, could speak enough to get by with English-speaking coaches but not enough to follow along with…whatever nonsense this was. Mat understood English just fine, of course, but he couldn’t follow any of the five or six different rapid-fire conversations going on around him at breakfast.

So they went just far enough away from the others to hear themselves think and they talked and talked, Mat’s school French carrying him much farther than he had hoped it would. His new friend – Tito – was so relieved to have someone to talk to that his words seemed to stumble over each other in their eagerness to be heard, yet Mat didn’t have any trouble following along.

When practice time came, they ran through their drills, sometimes separate, sometimes together. They whispered ridiculous comments to each other on the bench and they cheered each other’s flashiest shootout moves. 

Afterward, they found each other for lunch, and again for dinner, and for breakfast the next morning. They talked and laughed and cut up so much it was hard to remember to finish eating, which is not a normal situation for two teenage boys at an elite hockey camp 

Then again, Tito was a lot more interesting than a plate of hotel breakfast buffet scrambled eggs. Even comparing the two would be somehow insulting.

\--

**_Bonjour_ **

“Ah! Bonjour, mon ami!” _Hello, my friend!_

Tito had been assigned as Mat’s roommate at Ivan Hlinka.  Neither of them could stop smiling about it. Neither of them could stop talking until it was time to go for the team dinner.  And as soon as dinner and meetings are over, they are right back to talking and then to singing bad karaoke to each other – English, French, doesn’t seem to matter. 

“We have to sleep,” Mat says, and Tito laughs at him and hits him with a pillow.  Somehow this ends with both of them and all of the pillows and most of the blankets on one bed. 

“Sleep!” Mat grumbles again, in English and in French.

“Okay,” Tito says, and tangles himself into a blanket that was already partially around Mat, like he’s trying to make it not worth Mat’s while to move back to the other bed.

Mat is…surprisingly fine with this.  It’s whatever. 

It’s weird the next morning when they wake up like that, but Tito doesn’t seem to mind, and if Tito doesn’t mind Mat doesn’t mind. They get up and get ready like they would any other day, and they get put on a line together and it’s _incredible_ and Mat feels like they were both made for this, made for each other.

At the last game, Tito breaks his arm.  The doctors deal with it but they can’t deal with packing his stuff to go back to Canada. Mat is suddenly thankful that Tito’s a lot less messy than _he_ is, so it’ll be pretty easy to pack Tito’s stuff up for him.  He knows it means that his own stuff is going to be even worse to sort out than usual when he gets home, but everyone can just…deal.

Tito needs him.

\--

**_Bonsoir_ **

Mat had wished everyone good luck, but it was his own luck he started to worry about.

He’d interviewed with most teams at the Combine. Obviously, Edmonton and Buffalo weren’t going to be interested – Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel weren’t going anywhere but first and second overall, in that order.  It was true that Edmonton had another pick later in the first round and maybe someone who scouted the W might have liked what they saw enough to pick Mat there, if he was still on the draft board.

He wished he’d been smarter and not gotten hurt, or at least not gotten hurt in a stupid way.  Getting hurt isn’t always bad for your draft stock - if you’re Connor McDavid and you get hurt, you do it smart. You break your hand getting into just enough of a fight to please the Old Time Hockey crowd. If you’re Mat Barzal, you have a little too much fun wrestling your teammate and you shatter your fucking kneecap in the fucking locker room, and scouts don’t see as much of you because you’re injured, and combine interviewers question everything from your work ethic to your intelligence to how much money you’ll cost them on IR from doing dumb reckless shit.

Rantanen’s just been drafted by the Avs, Mat’s definitely out of the top ten, then a couple more picks go by and the Bruins have their three.  He gets speculative looks from some of the other guys in the audience, but he knows they don’t want him.  When Boston had interviewed him, he was just coming off of another interview that had been more of a lecture about his poor decision making, and then they had to lead with, “So tell us, why should we draft you?”

“Don’t,” Mat had snapped. “Don’t, then, and we’ll see how it works out for you.”

He shouldn’t have said that. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.  _Treize, quatorze, quinze._   All passing him by.

Edmonton. Sixteenth.  They seemed to be taking their time.  Then there was a weird flash in the lighting and a trade being announced.  Apparently, the Oilers really wanted Oil Kings hero Griffin Reinhart, enough to give up their next two picks.

And then... 

”The New York Islanders are proud to select, from the Seattle Thunderbirds, Mathew Barzal.”

The Islanders weren’t supposed to have a first-round pick this year, Mat knew that. They weren’t even supposed to have a second-round pick. That’s why they’d been one of the few teams that he hadn’t talked to at the combine.

“You guys came out of nowhere,” Mat heard himself saying to Garth Snow after they walked off the stage, and was rewarded with a chuckle and a, “That’s what we do!” in response.

Mat had heard but had forgotten that the next things you get when you’re drafted, after your new team’s jersey and cap, are a couple boxes of Sharpie markers and a gigantic pile of stuff that needs to be signed.

Just when his writing hand is about to go numb from scribbling autographs onto souvenir pucks, he’s given an excuse to stop because he sees his new team’s colors on someone else. The other guy turns, looks at him, and…

“Tito!”

Usually they can’t stop talking.  But this time, they can’t find the words. Hugs and incoherent yelling are the order of the evening.

\-- 

**_Bonne Nuit_ **

The October after Mat’s drafted, he hangs on for the very last pre-season game and then gets sent back to Seattle, and he’s okay with it.  He keeps in touch with some of the other Islanders prospects, and he has a rough year with Team Canada at World Juniors and a good year with the guys in Seattle, and he comes back to camp the next year ready to earn a spot all over again. 

They keep him on the roster, and they keep Tito on the roster, and he can’t believe it.

And then Mat’s first NHL game turns into Mat’s biggest embarrassment. 

_You can’t touch the puck with your stick when your feet are still in the penalty box._

How little are kids who learn that rule? Pretty much as soon as you start taking penalties for real?

Mat used to ref youth hockey, sometimes, and he can’t remember ever having to call a kid for doing something as stupid as what he just did.

_Fuck._

He’s half-expecting to get sent down the next day.  He doesn’t get sent down, but he does get scratched – for some reason, the coaches will only play him _or_ Tito in a game, never both, and they seem happier with Tito.

He gets one more game in – nothing awful happens but nothing good happens either – and then they do send him down.

Okay. He’s not going to be some kind of crybaby about it. He’s going to get back into his routine here, and he’s going to help Seattle be the best team in the W, and he’s going to help Canada _not completely embarrass themselves at World Juniors this time, what the hell was that last year,_ and _then_ he’s going to earn his spot next year. Or if he still can’t it won’t be because he didn’t do everything he could to put the common sense behind the skills.

Tito doesn’t get sent down. Mat wants to make sure Tito knows that Mat isn’t upset with _him,_ Mat’s really happy for him.  He knows it’s the longest of long shots, but he wishes that there was any real chance of Tito winning a Calder.

Mat loves his Seattle boys, and lets them know it – Gropper and Scotty and Neulsy and Keegs and the list goes on – but it doesn’t mean he _doesn’t_ miss the ever-living hell out of Tito.  He keeps up with how the Islanders are doing in general, with how Tito is doing in particular. 

He keeps talking to Tito when they both get the chance, even though it’s rough sometimes.  Mostly it’s rough for Mat to be back in juniors while Tito’s up with the Islanders, but he knows that missing World Juniors, a _decent_ World Juniors, is also rough on Tito.

But the worst part all year for Mat is the jealousy when Sanger gets called up and put on Tito’s line, when they form what’s obviously amazing chemistry.  _I wish that was me,_ Mat keeps thinking, _that should be me._

But it’s the kind of thing he only has time to think about at night, long after both Thunderbirds and Islanders are done playing, long after anyone – Tito included – is trying to talk to Mat about anything.

\--

**_Bon matin, encore!_ **

Finally, they both make the team, for good. At least, Mat hopes it’s for good.  They’re officially assigned to each other as road roommates. “Just like Hlinka,” Tito murmurs, and Mat makes some small noise of agreement. 

He should have expected it when Tito hits him with a pillow.  “Been waiting to do that?” he asks, laughing.

“Yeah, for a while now.”

Mat apparently hasn’t gotten entirely over his habit of just blurting shit out, because the next thing he says is, “Been waiting to do anything else?”

He’s terrified for a moment that he’s just fucked everything up because Tito just looks at him stunned for a moment 

But then.  “Where do I even _start?”_ is the next thing Tito manages to say.

“Like this?” Mat asks as he pushes Tito down on the bed, brings their mouths together for the kiss that must have been inevitable since this whole thing started. 

After they break apart just enough, Tito says, “Yeah, I guess that’s…that’s a good start.”

“Good start? What else do you want?” Mat asks, and if his voice sounds light it’s lying, this is the most serious thing he’s ever asked Tito, ever asked _anyone,_ he doesn’t want to get it wrong.

“Everything…you, anything, _please,_ Mat, for _years_ I’ve been…”

“Get these clothes off, then?” Mat moves to help Tito with exactly that, and it doesn’t take long for Tito to return the favor, both of them laughing nervously. 

 “That’s…okay, what now?” Tito is looking at Mat, nervous but hopeful and obviously incredibly turned on.

Mat runs a hand up along Tito’s thigh, light, teasing. “It’s – we go well, work well together, I don’t think this should be too hard to –" he winces.  "Wait, what the _hell_ did I just say, what’s wrong with me –“

Tito giggles but then looks more seriously at Mat.  “I think I see what you mean, just take what we already know and see what happens, and we fix it if it goes wrong?”

“Yes. That.”

They figure things out enough to leave the bed a mess.  “Could sleep in the other one?” Mat suggests, and Tito says “yeah” around a yawn and a smile.

They wake up in the morning like they did at Hlinka, tangled in the blankets and around each other, but this time without clothes. 

 _“Bon matin, mon ami,”_ Mat murmurs.  “Sleep well?”

“Mm-hmm,” Tito responds, smiling and pulling Mat in closer to him.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: The main characters are 15 when the story starts but nothing explicit happens until they're 20. Also there is a point where Mat is sort of implied to be thinking that Tito is dating a different teammate but he's not, this is random worried/jealous Mat before Mat and Tito actually get together.


End file.
